Dell Hymes

Dell Hymes (7 June 1927-13 November 2009) was an American linguist, sociolinguist, anthropologist, and folklorist. He was the father of linguistic anthropology, saying that language must convey the intent of the sender and have the interpretation of the receiver.

Biography
Dell Hathaway Hymes was born in Portland, Oregon in 1927, and his service in prewar Korea as a US Army decoder influenced his later decision to become a linguist. He took a job at Harvard after graduating from Indiana University in 1955, and he later worked at UC Berkeley. He became president of the Linguistic Society of America in 1982, of the American Anthropological Association in 1983, and of the American Folklore Society. He died in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2009.